The Priebes.com

Here are a couple of pictures from a recent Bible Hour.

On New Years’ Day, we ate a really late lunch, so Leann decided it would be okay to have cookies for lunch. I submitted to her superior wisdom in this case.

Leann had the boys wear Santa aprons and hats that she bought on clearance right after Christmas, and decorate their own cookies.

This past weekend I went ahead and took three days off, instead of my normal one day off. Leann, the kids and I decided to see if we could reproduce the infamous Diet Coke and Mentos experiment.

We were successful, as you can see in the video below. You may have to turn the volume up a bit to hear all the fascinating dialogue. (Mostly Josh’s reaction.)

About a week ago, Josh made a robot using a box he found in the trash. He did get in trouble for two things:

1. Using Leann’s craft ribbons.
2. Making the below video on Leann’s iPhone 3Gs without asking.

I didn’t even know he knew how to use Leann’s iPhone video capability.

For those that don’t know, almost two months ago a girl ran a red light and hit my car, totaling it. I was grateful that she didn’t hit the car in front of me, which had Leann and the kids in it. But it was definitely inconvenient.

We rented a car for about a week, but then were fortunate enough to have friends to let us use their cars for several more weeks. (Thanks, guys!) Finally, about three weeks ago, we bought my new car.

It’s a 2006 Hyundai Accent. No power windows or automatic locks or anything like that, and it is a standard. But it’s a definite upgrade from the old ‘95 Saturn that served me well for about eight years. It’s the newest car I’ve owned, and it’s a four-door, making it much easier to tote the kids around.

When we first moved into our house back in 2006 (or was it 2005?), our fence was almost complete. We were the last people on our street to move in, and our backyard was up against a major street. So the builders built the back fence, and the neighbors built the side fences. All we had left was the four foot sections on either side, at least one of which needed a gate.

Fast forward to last Christmas. Apparently my dad was tired of us not having the fence finished, and gave us a gift card for him to finish the fence. He came up for my birthday at the end of June and redeemed the gift card while I was at work. It was a surprise to me. I should have realized what he was doing when he called me at work to ask where my circular saw was, but I was so busy that I didn’t give the request a second thought.

Thanks, Dad!

A couple weeks ago we managed to pick up an old iMac for $15 at a garage sale. Despite the fact that it’s around 7-9 years old, Brent helped me upgrade it to 10.4. We installed a Sesame Street game on it, and changed Firefox’s home page to PBS Kids, and it was good to go. The kids love it, though Jackson has trouble understanding that it’s for both of them. He keeps calling it bubba’s computer.

Well, it’s been quite awhile since either Leann or I blogged on here. We’ve both been keeping busy with family, work, etc. I’ve had several 80 hour weeks since February, which has left little family time, much less blogging time. Hopefully you’ve been keeping up with us on Facebook, Twitter, etc. We have our latest Facebook statuses on the sidebar here, or you can find both Leann and myself on Facebook itself, and Leann and myself on Twitter.

We’ve just recently signed on with a business coach, and hope to increase the profitibility of T&S and make it so I can occasionally take time off, and don’t have to work many more 80 hour weeks.

Speaking of taking time off, I actually took off today on a Friday, mostly so Leann could do a few business related things this morning, and so I could go to Josh’s field day on his last day of pre-k. Whatever field day is. I assume I’ll know in about a half hour here…

The boys and I had a fun morning, and it’s been awhile since I’ve been able to spend this much time alone with them. We went to Whataburger this morning for breakfast, then to the “rock store”next door. They spotted a fountain in the small lot that sells landscaping rocks next door to Whataburger, so we walked over there after eating. After coming back home, we spent about an hour playing, cleaned up the wagon, and walked Josh to his last day at pre-k.

Theoretically part of what our business coaching sessions (and our extensive follow-up work) will do is make more days like that possible. I’d love to move to a four day work week, even if it’s still 40-50 hours.